Change is the first bill I signed into law — the Lilly Ledbetter Act that says women deserve an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work. That’s what change is.

Change is the decision we made to rescue the American auto industry from collapse, even when it wasn’t popular and some people said we should let Detroit go bankrupt. With one million jobs on the line, I wasn’t going to let that happen. And today, GM is back on top as the world’s number-one automaker. (Applause.) It just reported the highest profits in the 100-year history of that company. (Applause.) With more than 200,000 new jobs created in the last two and a half years, the American auto industry is back. That’s change. Change is the decision we made to stop waiting for Congress to do something about our oil addiction and go ahead and raise our fuel-efficiency standards for the first time in decades. (Applause.) And by the next decade, we’ll be driving American-made cars that get almost 55 miles to a gallon. That’s what change is. (Applause.) Change is the fight that we won to stop handing out over $60 billion in taxpayer subsidies to banks that issue student loans. We said, let’s give that money directly to the students — (applause) — and that way we can increase the number of students that are getting loans and the amount of loans that they’re getting, so that millions of young people have opportunities they didn’t have before. And, yes, change is the health care reform bill that we passed after a century of trying — (applause) — a reform that has already allowed 2.6 million young people to stay on their parent’s insurance. A reform that will ensure that in the United States of America, nobody is going to go broke just because they get sick. (Applause.) And Americans will no longer be denied or dropped by their insurance companies just when they need care the most. That’s what change is. Change is the fact that for the first time in our history, you don’t have to hide who you love to serve the country you love. (Applause.) That’s what change is. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is over. (Applause.) That’s change. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. That has changed. (Applause.) We refocused our efforts on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. And thanks to the brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it has ever been, and bin Laden isn’t around anymore. That’s what change is. (Applause.) Now, none of this change has been easy, and we still got a lot more work to do. There are still too many Americans out there that are looking for work. There are still too many families who can barely pay the bills, still see their homes underwater. We’re still recovering from the worst economic situation in our lifetimes. But as tough as this economy is and has been, think about what’s changed the day I took office. That month we were losing 750,000 jobs. Over the past two years, businesses have added about 3.7 million new jobs. (Applause.) Our manufacturers are creating jobs for the first time since the 1990s. Our economy is getting stronger. The recovery is accelerating. America is coming back. And the last thing we can afford to do is go back to the same policies that got us back — got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) That’s what is at stake in this election. And that’s what the other candidates want to do, take us back